A couple months into wearing partial dentures, does it really suck?

Roughly a month into wearing my dentures I sort of got used to them. Even the tediousness of cleaning them. No matter how tired or drunk I am, if I’m still conscious I’d take ’em out and clean them. I know, I know I’m not supposed to sleep with them on but sometimes I just can’t help it, haha. However, I found myself biting harder, gone was the gentle, feeling out the dentures kinda of bite. This is when I started getting a sore spot on the roof of my mouth.

If you want to read about how I got up to this point HERE‘s the post. If you wanna read where I went previously to get the majority of my dental work done, HERE‘s that post.

My theory is that because I was biting things harder, especially foods that break up into hard, smaller bits, like chips, I developed a sore spot on the roof of my mouth where the back edge of the denture’s metal touched the roof of my mouth and the jagged bits sometimes get caught there. Why only there? I have no idea. Anyways, that sore spot soon turned out to be this pimple looking thing. I tried to pop it with a toothpick but it felt hard and didn’t puncture. Great! Luckily, I was heading back to Bangkok to spend Xmas and New Year. In the meantime, I stopped wearing the dentures for a few days to stop the discomfort. Once I couldn’t feel the irritation I put the denture back in and the irritation came back. Maybe I should stop eating Doritos so much, it’s always most irritating when eating those, haha.

I made my appointment (at Bangkok Dental Care) for the first Monday we were there, to coincide with when my dentist would be in and I explained my discomfort to her. She looked puzzled so I showed the her the picture and she said, “ok.” and took the dentures out of my mouth and started sanding/grinding something while telling me that the spot is gone and it doesn’t look injured. Just a bit “more red”, “everything is fine.” After she was finished with the grinding of the metal section of the dentures she assured me that everything would fine and that white spot was just an abscess and shouldn’t happen again. Huh…ok? I guess?! Well that would explain why I only got sore at that one spot.

Well, I have to say, almost a month after her adjustments, nothing weird or uncomfortable has yet to happen and I’ve continued to feast on Doritos! Oh, I almost forgot, I wasn’t charged for services this visit, bonus!

Now to answer the question…Does it suck? For me, wearing them and eating with them on, I’d have to say, “No”, they don’t. Taking care of them, however, I find it tedious and yeah it sucks, lol. I suppose I could use those dissolvable denture cleaner tablet things but that just costs more money, haha.

So the point of this post is to highlight the importance of planning enough time for adjustments after actually using the dentures under a variety of conditions. I guess I lucked out by living close enough to Thailand where dental vacations are still financially feasible even after factoring in airfare and accommodations.

As always, thanks for viewing and best wishes!

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My experience at Bangkok Dental Care, another dental holiday

For all y’all just tuning in, I’ve elected to have my dental work done in Bangkok,Thailand this time. The majority of my dental work was done in Chiang Mai (HERE’s the post about that experience). This time, I didn’t go to Chiang Mai because the general consensus was that the process would need 3 weeks and I can’t be in Chiang Mai because I really wanted to meet the guys and gals behind Travelfeed.io and other travelfeeders (which was totally worth it) and to check out Steemfest as well. Oh well, another chance for me to step outside my comfort zone and have a stranger muck around in my mouth, YAY, NOT!

Bangkok Dental Care is located on the top floor in Century The Movie Plaza, right beside On Nut BTS station. There’s even a connected walkway into the 2nd floor of the mall from the BTS station. My first impression was that it looked decent and well lit but in a mall so the prices may be higher but I didn’t find that was the case after doing some Googling so I went in to inquire about getting partial dentures done and they fit me in so they could have a look and advise me on costs etc. The dentist could speak English well enough to explain to me the procedures and differences between the different types of dentures although a bit labored at times or maybe I was just asking stupid questions like “would I get a refund if it turns out I’m allergic to the metal” or “if they had a test metal strip I could put in my mouth” haha. The answer was ‘no’ to both questions so I decided to go home and do some more research before committing but I couldn’t. As luck would have it, it was a Monday and the dentist who does dentures is only there on Monday’s so I made an appointment for later that afternoon.

I get to my appointment on time and had to wait about thirty minutes. I’m thinking ok, not so bad since I am kind of last minute rushing things. So it’s finally my turn and I’m asked to go in but before I do I have to take off my shoes and wear the provided slippers. Kinda normal here in Thailand so no big deal. So here I am sitting in the dentist chair waiting and waiting and well you get the idea. I sat there looking around for about 45 minutes. A lot of time to notice things like spots on the wall that I thought they were roaches but they weren’t. Maybe lizard droppings? I couldn’t tell. I also noticed the equipment was dated and lots of saran wrap used to cover things. Then I saw a drip pan made from a re-purposed water bottle. I hope it was a drip pan cuz it was hooked up to that mouth rinse thing. So now I’m having second thoughts and asked one of the dental assistance, who happened to be walk by, how much longer I’d have to wait. Of course she didn’t know and went to go ask. Well, at least the dental chairs are all in their own little room connected by a “back corridor” so if I was to get up and leave no one would see, oh wait, I’d have to get my shoes. Hahaha.

Anyways, the dentist comes in 10-15 minutes later and we get started. She had to make notches or something in my teeth for the partial denture clips to grab hold of as well as to make a mold of my teeth. I don’t know if she was mad at me for rushing her (just kidding she and all the staff are quite friendly) but she felt heavy handed. Maybe I’m over thinking / reacting but the corner of my mouth did crack/tear a bit. Granted the weather is different than what I’m used to and my lips were dry and cracking so the tugging sure didn’t help. NOTE: I’m not blaming the dentist for ripping my mouth and it’s not like I Look like The Joker or anything. I’m just recounting my adventure and sharing my thoughts.

After the session I felt kinda violated, I can feel the dents and grooves on my teeth with my tongue and quite unhappy about it since I don’t have too many original and intact ones left. Oh well, life goes on. A week later, here’s my brand spanking new partial metal dentures!

This time around, the dentist was still kinda rough but was very patient with me when I complained my bite was uneven. She had to adjust/modify the dentures several times and then some. After that came the denture care counseling and stuff where I got a free “tupperware” to store my dentures in, bonus! Haha.

After wearing my dentures for the week (HERE’s the post about it) was painful even the putting on and taking off. Which was fixed in my “after care” appointment. Now 2 weeks after first putting them on, there is absolutely no pain from putting them on or taking them off or from eating.

OH, the few times I was there I noticed that a lot of the clients were foreigners so don’t worry about the English language barrier, they’ll understand you just fine. The total cost I paid was $12,000 Baht (over 4 visits), If you shop around more than I did, especially the less touristy looking clinics you may find the services a bit cheaper but even at this price, it’s still cheaper than what I was quoted in Singapore. I would still recommend checking them out if you’re in need of dental care while in Bangkok because I’m completely satisfied with the work done for me.

Consider following me for updates to find not only my other (usually travel) bloopers, blunders and shenanigans but also photography related news/reviews and the occasional contest entry.

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